Tuesday 15 June 2010

Guns don't kill people, wipers do.

Oh dear. Here we go again with something that is going to kill you now. Anyone who drives a car is going to be killed, because there is new scientific "proof" (and I use the term proof as loosely as the French screw their cars together) that water from your windscreen wipers is going to kill you. No, you're not going to drown from it, but the stagnant warm water from your windscreen wipers is likely to give you a rare but deadly disease. Some wonderfully overpaid, bespectacled "research scientist" in a white coat has "performed" some "research" to come up with the "conclusion" that if you drive a car, and especially if you are a "professional driver", you are five times more likely to succumb to Legionnaires' Disease. And in "no way" am I overusing "quotation" "marks". "At". "All". OK, moment has passed.

The build up of bacteria in the stagnant water is that dangerous it will kill you. A questionnaire has been sent to motorists to find out their driving habits, with certain sex, age groups and area codes targeted. But only in England and Wales. So do we assume Scotland are immune due to the climate? Are the Irish just immune full stop? Is it because the Irish put (insert stereotype here) Guinness in the screen washer bottle of their cars?

What do they think we are going to do? Sip some freshly squeezed wiper water with lunch?

There is a glimmer of hope in this most darkest of dark things that is incredibly dark. You can, of course use screen wash additive. Not washing up liquid obviously, because that is abrasive, wrecks the paintwork and clogs the screen washer bottle, pump and hoses. No, the proper screen washer additive. You can buy it in Tesco, Halfrauds and such. Isn't it. Standard. Only you can't use it. Because there is more "proof" (here we go again) that the vapours from said screen washer additive is linked to cancer. And that would, like, be well bad and shit. You'd be, like, due some compensation and shit like that. Standard.

So you can't use the screen washers in your car because you'll die. So the solution? Let your screen get dirty, crash and die. Wash your car and let the car shampoo give you skin cancer. And die. Or go to a drive through car wash, wreck the paintwork on your car, let the car wash catch fire, collapse on you and your car. And die. Or get someone else to do it, stand back and watch, get run over by a bus. And die. Have a ham sandwich and leave the car well alone. Oh, of course though, the processed ham will give you cancer. And you'll die. And whatever you do, don't switch on the light because..... yeah, you know the rest.

Every week there is something else, something new to link us to what is likely to be our untimely demises. If the research is concrete then maybe it would be palatable. Threads of evidence here and there is no use to man nor beast and new findings that contradict old findings are nothing short of dangerous, let alone frustrating. But there are all sorts of ways and things that will kill us over time. For example, scientists haven't proven that slowly scooping your brain out through your nose with a spoon is going to kill you. But we all know it would. So would living on a diet on pencil sharpeners. And jumping in front of a bus is pretty permanent, and no kind of  "research" will find a "solution" to that one. Except maybe banning buses. Which seems the previous government, at least, were pretty keen banning everything up to and maybe including breathing, that wouldn't have been such a far fetched idea. The idea of stationary shops banning pencil sharpeners because some insufferable oaf ate one seems amusing too.

Oooooh, hang on, thought of one way to clean your windscreen. Urinate on it. Job's a goodun.

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